theglobalchinese
Jun 27 2005, 12:36 AM
Iran's new president walks a hard line USA Today
The election of Tehran's mayor as Iran's president consolidates power under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and will bolster those in the United States who argue against engagement with Iran's theocratic regime, some Iran analysts say. The victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "very much strengthens the sense here that there is no use dealing with Iran," said Shaul Bakhash, an Iran expert at George Mason University in Virginia. Bakhash predicted that the United States will move to isolate Iran and promote regime change, while diminishing any chance that U.S.-backed European negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program will succeed. Ahmadinejad defeated former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in a runoff Friday. In a news conference Sunday, Ahmadinejad pledged to continue the nuclear talks and tried to reassure Westernized Iranian young people that he would not curb social freedoms expanded under outgoing President Mohammad Khatami. "No extremism will be acceptable," said Ahmadinejad, the son of a blacksmith and a former member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Basij (paramilitary morals police). However, in contrast to Rafsanjani — who promised to reach out to the United States — Ahmadinejad said, "Our nation ... has no significant need for the United States." Washington broke ties with Iran in 1980 when Iranian students, in the throes of revolution against the U.S.-backed shah, were holding 52 Americans hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The Bush administration rejected the legitimacy of the Iranian presidential elections in advance, citing the disqualification of more than 1,000 candidates by the Shiite Muslim clerical establishment. Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called Ahmadinejad "no friend of democracy" and "no friend of freedom." "He is a person who is very much supportive of the current ayatollahs, who are telling the people of that country how to live their lives," Rumsfeld said on Fox News Sunday. "My guess is (that) over time, the young people and the women will find him, as well as his masters, unacceptable." Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said, "There had been some concern that if Rafsanjani won, the United States would have had to do something nice for him. With Ahmadinejad, there's not going to be anyone who will argue that." Iranian officials who had supported Rafsanjani said they were disappointed but would continue to use the opportunities afforded by Iran's quasi-democracy to advance better relations with the outside world and change within Iran. "Reform is a reality in the society of Iran," said Sadeq Kharrazi, Iran's ambassador to France, in a telephone interview. He said reformers would regroup to try to regain a majority in municipal elections next year and parliamentary elections in 2008. Pro-Khamenei officials eliminated most reform candidates for both bodies in 2003 and 2004. Kharrazi, a nephew of Iran's foreign minister, also predicted that Khamenei would not change a sophisticated team that has been negotiating with the Europeans. Britain, France and Germany had planned to present a package to Iranian negotiators next month, offering trade and energy concessions in return for Iran giving up efforts to produce nuclear fuel. Iranian officials have refused; Ahmadinejad's victory is likely to bolster a tough line. "We need this technology for energy and medical purposes," Ahmadinejad said Sunday. "We shall carry on with it." Clawson called the vote a victory for the generation of Iranians who fought the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. The group has close ties to organizations such as the Revolutionary Guards, which have long backed Shiite militant groups in Lebanon and Iraq, and the Palestinians, who are regarded as terrorists by Israel and the United States, Clawson said. The new president could be more absorbed with domestic issues. He has pledged to keep expensive subsidies on basic goods such as gasoline and to cut lending rates to individuals and small businesses. But foreign investors — who are needed to renovate Iran's aging oil infrastructure — could be frightened off by such policies, which were tried in the 1980s and led to inflation and more poverty. "At this point, the whole system is in shock," said Farideh Farhi, an Iran expert at the University of Hawaii. "I am not sure even Ahmadinejad's supporters have thought through the implications of his win."
Contributing: Wire reports
Iran firm on nuclear plans London Free Press
Schroeder Calls For New EU Offer To Iran In Nuclear Talks Radio Free Europe
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Snuffysmith
Jun 30 2005, 10:43 AM
The implications of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election as president of Iran are still unclear. An effort is clearly underway to label him as a man "with whom we cannot do business." This could turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. In the following commentary, however, Gary Sick, who oversaw Iranian issues in the White House during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis and who has written extensively about Iran subsequently, points out, offers a wider range of possible outcomes and cautions against a rush to judgment.
I hesitate to weigh in on this subject with so many interesting and insightful contributions already posted. However, since
I've been doing a series of interviews, I have had to develop opinions on all aspects of the Iranian elections. Since everyone else is doing it, here are my own questions, comments and evolving views.
Ahmadinejad seems to have been the beneficiary of a populist revolt (in addition to a little polling station assistance from his friends in the Revolutionary Guards and Basij). A friend of mine compares this to the election of Communist mayors in Italy during the Cold War -- who were elected not because of ideology but because they were seen as separate from the existing corrupt power structure and more efficient. (That proved to be correct in many cases, but these were mayors, after all, not
presidents.) I think the populism of Ahmadinejad can be compared with the Chavez and Peronist movements, but I wouldn't want to press that too far, partly because I don't know enough about Latin America.
The comparison with the George W Bush political phenomenon in the US is very useful, not because the two men or their nations are particularly alike, but rather to explain what is going on politically and what it may mean. Ahmadinejad has assembled, or at least is the product of, a large constituency composed of people who place special value on religious and
traditional values. He also seems to have the support of much of the military establishment. He has apparently never traveled outside his own country and has no personal experience in foreign policy. He has a PhD from an elite university and has been the mayor of one of the largest cities in the world (somewhere in size between London and Beijing), but he portrays himself convincingly as a no-nonsense, plain man of the people. He is not a cleric (the first non-cleric president of Iran since the
earliest years after the revolution) but wears his religion on his sleeve far more than most of the "political clerics" who have been leading the country for most of the past 25 years.
The similarities (and there are many points of difference as well) suggest that it would be unwise to underestimate Ahmadinejad or regard him as a fluke. And the apparently genuine approval reflected in numerous man-in-the-street interviews suggests it would be wrong to regard this as nothing but a case of election rigging. It was clearly not a fair and free
election, but a lot of the emerging evidence suggests that the man who won had the votes.
One of the greatest differences between Bush and Ahmadinejad appears to be economic policy. He is a protectionist and seems to be wedded to the notion of subsidies for the poor. That is very different from George W Bush, and it is contrary to the direction Iran has been moving in recent years. Perhaps that is why he was so appealing to people who are looking
for subsidies and direct help (e.g. handouts proposed by one candidate) and who feel that the system has forgotten them and failed them. One could argue that there are far better ways to provide economic benefits to the poor (e.g. job creation), but it looks as if the new president will have to be persuaded. At a minimum it suggests that he will be less interested in pursuing WTO membership if it conflicts (as it no doubt would) with his populist agenda.
This was a changing of the guard. Ahmadinejad is about 16 years younger than Khamene`i and 21 years younger than Rafsanjani. He is, however, totally a product of the revolution, He was 22 when the shah fell, and he has had experience on the front in the Iran-Iraq war and participation in the hard line Basij paramilitary. Not only is he not likely to renounce
the revolutionary mystique, he is likely to take it upon himself to revive that mystique, which has been visibly waning over time. His youth, however, suggests there will be some experimentation and false starts and perhaps new directions that are still far from clear, perhaps as much to Ahmadinejad as to the rest of us.
There are many intriguing questions, some of which may never be answered and others that may be answered by events in the near future:
O What is Ahmadinejad's relationship with Supreme Leader Khamene'i? Khamene'i initially appeared to favor Ali Larijani (former head of radio & TV), who made a very poor showing despite a lot of favorable media coverage -- so much for the theory that the election was decided by TV alone. There are conflicting theories: (1) that the Ahmadinejad election
was in fact a popular vote against Khamene`i and the clerical regime and is a sign that the regime is about to fall (I regard this as wishful thinking to the max); and (2) Ahmadinejad was really Khamene'i's man from the start and Khamene`i was just fiendishly clever in springing him as a surprise (I regard this a typical post-hoc conspiracy theory and worthless); or (3) the relationship is complex and we don't really understand it (this is probably true but doesn't help us much). Whatever
the past, it is very likely, it seems to me, that Khamene`i will now adopt Ahmadinejad with enthusiasm and make the most of the opportunity.
O Khamene`i also appeared genuinely annoyed that Rafsanjani decided to run, probably because Rafsanjani might reemerge as more of a rival than he already was. So if Khamene'i actually conspired at the end to insure Ahmadinejad's election, that might be a partial explanation of why he acted.
O Who will be the new foreign minister? Perhaps more important, will Ahmadinejad reach deep into the largely technocratic staff of the foreign ministry and replace them with his own people (whoever they may be)? If so, this could be a real setback and could return Iran to the bad old days of a foreign policy dominated more by ideology that pragmatism.
O The same question about other branches of the government, particularly in sectors such as banking, finance and oil, which will shape the climate for foreign investment. I would be amazed to learn that any major foreign corporation would be willing to undertake any major new projects until a lot of this dust has settled.
O Since Ahmadinejad is now even more indebted to the Revolutionary Guards, will they come to play an even more prominent role in the new government than they have in the recent past? Specifically, given the Revolutionary
Guards' past role in creating and supporting Hezbollah and its apparent willingness in the past to pursue a "foreign policy" independent of the formal government, including suggestions of questionable free-lance operations, what will this mean for Iran's official foreign policy and for the trend away from such rogue activities over the past ten years or so? Any return to the policies of subversion and active export of the revolution will impair relations not only with the United States but with
Europe, states around the Persian Gulf, and other countries.
O As a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, and as an enthusiastic supporter of the Revolutionary Guards, what sort of policies will Ahmadinejad promote toward Iraq? A more interventionist policy could lead to direct conflict with the United States.
O It is true that foreign and security policy is a collective decision, not the sole prerogative of the president. However, we have seen over the past eight years what a tremendous influence President Khatami, for all his alleged failings, was able to exert over Iran's international relations. The conservatives have acquiesced, but it was Khatami's leadership that drove the process. The continuation of that process is now in real doubt.
O The European negotiators are due to present a "final" offer of economic incentives to Iran in July, in return for firm nuclear commitments, particularly on enrichment. This was always problematic at best, but it will present the first opportunity for Ahmadinejad to be heard on a major issue of international importance.
Various "explanations" of the election and its implications, as usual reflect more on the views of those doing the explaining than on reality. We hear that: (1) Ahmadinejad and company will not dare change or withdraw the social freedoms that have been so hard won over the past decade; (2) that this was a rejection of the Iranian Islamic system that will hasten the counter revolution; (3) that the election will lead to more direct U.S. assistance and support for the opposition -- especially in Los
Angeles; (4) the election removed a troublesome friendly face that masked an underlying evil regime, as thus will make it easier to deal realistically with the clerical regime without illusions; (5) the new regime will create a mess that will demonstrate to everyone the unworkability of the Islamic Republic; and (6) having a hardliner in power may facilitate the possibility of a "Nixon-to-China" scenario that opens up new relations between the United States and Iran. I think there is probably at least a grain of truth in all of these -- and others that I may have overlooked -- but I wouldn't place a lot of faith in any of them.
It is too early to make firm judgments. New governments have the capacity to surprise us -- perhaps as much as the
outcome of the election itself.
theglobalchinese
Jul 1 2005, 05:42 AM
Supporters, detractors deny US hostage link San Francisco Chronicle
The controversy over whether Iran's new hard-line president-elect was involved in the 1979 hostage crisis at the US Embassy in Tehran took a new turn Thursday as both supporters and opponents of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied that he had taken part in the operation. "I don't believe it's him,'' said the leader of the group that took over the embassy, Abbas Abdi, when he was shown a photo of the man several former hostages have identified as Ahmadinejad. "I don't even think it resembles him. He was not part of us. He played no role in the seizure." However, Mark Bowden, whose book on the hostage crisis, "Guests of the Ayotollah," will be published next year, said Ahmadinejad had been a leader of the group whose members seized the embassy and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. "He was one of the top members of the group and directly involved in decision-making,'' said Bowden, whose book is based on interviews with many of the hostages and hostage-takers. "Not so much in the supervision of hostages - - that was left to lesser lights." He said the denials now emanating from Iran might be motivated by internal politics as well as by the international uproar. He noted that Ahmadinejad, 49, who was elected president in a landslide vote last Friday, "very assiduously denies he was involved. Probably smartly, because it doesn't help him now that he's a national figure, and it doesn't do him any favors in dealing with the rest of the world." Even in Iran, "being a hostage-taker is not popular anymore. My impression is that a majority of Iranians respond today to the taking of the embassy as a huge mistake that led to great problems for their country in the last 25 years," said Bowden, whose book "Black Hawk Down" looked at another difficult moment in U.S. history, the botched rescue of a U.S. helicopter crew in war-torn Somalia. The Nov. 4, 1979, takeover in Iran followed protests demanding the return of the shah, who was in New York after his overthrow in the Islamic revolution. Diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States have been severed since then. Moments after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in January 1981 -- and after the United States released almost $8 billion in Iranian assets -- the 52 hostages were released. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the Bush administration took the allegations by former hostages very seriously. He added: "We are looking into them to better understand the facts. I think the news reports and statement from several former American hostages raise many questions about his past." Six former American hostages have said they recognized Ahmadinejad. "As soon as I saw the face, it rang a lot of bells to me," Don Sharer of Bedford, Ind., told CNN. The former naval attache at the Tehran embassy said he was 99 percent sure of his identification. "When you're placed in a life- threatening situation of that nature, you just remember those things," he said. Another former hostage, William J. Daugherty, a former CIA officer who now lives in Savannah, Ga., said he remembered Ahmadinejad "acting in a supervisory or leadership capacity" during the early weeks of his captivity. Retired Col. David Roeder, 66, who was deputy Air Force attache at the embassy in 1979, has told reporters that Ahmadinejad watched as interrogators threatened to kidnap Roeder's handicapped son in the United States and mutilate him "if I didn't start to cooperate." However, at least one former hostage, Air Force Col. Thomas E. Schaefer, has said he does not believe it is the man in photos of the hostage crisis is Ahmadinejad. A close aide to the president-elect, Kaveh Eshtehardi, refused to look at photographs the former hostages said resembled Ahmadinejad. "We won't enter a media game,'' he said. "We won't heed such allegations. " Ahmadinejad's official biography says that while he was a student at Tehran's University of Science and Technology, he was a member of the Office for Strengthening Unity, a radical student organization whose members included the organizers of the embassy takeover. He has told interviewers that he opposed the operation, because "I believed that if we (took over the U.S. embassy), the world will swallow us." A number of politically prominent Iranians -- including both reformers who oppose Ahmadinejad, and hard-liners inside and outside the government -- were involved in the hostage-taking, Bowden said. Among them were speaker of the parliament Mohsen Mirdamadi and Mohammed Hashemi, the first deputy of the Iranian intelligence agency. Hashemi and his wife, the vice president of Iran, Massoumeh Ebtekar, met inside the embassy during the hostage crisis. "Ahmadinejad is just the most recent of the central players in the takeover of the American Embassy to arise to positions of power in the Iranian government," Bowden said.
E-mail Mike Weiss at mikeweiss@sfchronicle.com.
Top Iranian Official Aided Hostage-Takers KFSN
US probes '79 captives' accusations Chicago Tribune
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Islamic Republic News Agency -
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Snuffysmith
Jul 6 2005, 09:28 PM
For American observers seeking to understand the significance of the recent
elections in Iran, it has been hard to get beyond the knee-jerk reactions of
the various interested parties. The following article by Roxane
Farmanfarmaian of the Centre of International Studies, Cambridge University,
presents a more analytic picture. She is cautious not to draw premature
conclusions but her analysis does contain an important message for US
policy. This is that, in as much as Ahmadinejad enjoys genuine popular
support, it will be less credible for American policy makers to argue that
the Iranian government is out of touch with the people and to base US policy
around the notion of "reaching out to the Iranian people and against their
government."
"One of the best indicators of a genuine democracy is if the outcome of a
contested election remains in question until the end. By this measure, the
presidential election in Iran, in which Mayor of Tehran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
won 61% of the vote in a runoff against government insider Ali Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani would show Iran to be a thriving democracy. In the most
hotly fought election since the beginning of the Islamic Republic in 1980,
Iran showed itself a country whose people, whether in the cities or the
countryside, take their vote seriously. With over 59 percent turnout on both
voting days, accusations by outside analysts of widespread disenchantment
with the regime (particularly on the part of the young), or internal calls
by liberals for a boycott, proved unfounded. With elections going to two
rounds, the population gave a strong mandate to a conservative populist
known best for his egalitarian rhetoric and anti-corruption platform than
for his interest or experience in international affairs.
Like his predecessor, outgoing President Mohammad Khatami, also little known
when he swept the polls in 1997, Ahmadinejad is a populist, appealing to
wide swathes of the more traditional lower- and middle-income sectors,
and rural periphery. Unlike Khatami, however, he is the first laymen to be
elected since Abolhassan Bani-Sadr became the first President of the
Republic in 1981. Labelled variously both inside and outside Iran as a
hardliner and radical conservative, the new president won at the polls based
on his mayoral record of clean governance, religious conviction and simple
living - characteristics that appealed to a population sick of the
corruption and in-fighting that have been the hallmarks of Iran's political
scene for the past 12 years. Unlike the vanquished former president
Rafsanjani, who is deputy president of the Council of Experts (which
appoints Iran's Supreme Leader), and chairman of the Expediency Council
(which advises the Supreme Leader when conflicts arise between the
parliament and the clerical Guardian Counsel, the government's ideological
watchdog), Ahmadinejad is in many ways an outsider, a university lecturer
who, as mayor, beautified Tehran and brought transparency to city
government. His common-man image, much like that of Hugo Chavez in
Venezuela, rather than any emphasis on ideology, played a large part in
securing him the election in a country where ostentation and orientation
toward any foreign agenda still conjures up memories of the Pahlavi monarchy
and its dependence politically and economically on the West. His website
Mardomyar literally means People's Friend. To Iranians, even the vocal
young, he represents key aspects of Iranian identity: religious honesty,
national pride against the outside world, and a pragmatism for addressing
pressing economic issues. Statements such as US Secretary of State
Condoleeza Rice's saying "I just don't see the Iranian elections as being a
serious attempt to move Iran closer to a democratic future," or that the
Iranian elections could not "mask the organized cruelty of Iran's theocratic
state" may well have contributed to the high electoral turnout.
Iranians, at the forefront of developing a democracy at odds with US norms,
considered the election an opportunity to air different views, and voted not
in small measure to show their support of their Islamic-based government.
The large turnout suggests several other factors. First, it showed that a
lively political conversation exists in Iran with starkly differing
viewpoints on how democracy should proceed. Interestingly, the debate
spawned by the elections revealed how far politics have actually travelled
along the 'reformist' path, with all the candidates projecting themselves in
various ways as more moderate, more modern, and more responsive to the
electorate than in previous elections. As voting took place, the streets in
the cities and provinces were thronged with supporters electioneering for
different camps, with no violence reported. Accusations of fraud, which were
immediately picked up by the foreign media, were in fact never formally
brought by any of the candidates. Even so, they were addressed by Interior
Ministry officials, who randomly re-counted ballot boxes around
the country after both the main and run-off elections.
The differences among the candidates upon careful analysis, however, proved
less ideological than it originally seemed (with Rafsanjani offering a
subsidy to the poor, for example, and Ahmadinejad promising a re-allocation
of oil wealth for greater parity among the population). No candidate
suggested sweeping changes to the Constitution, to the relationship with the
US, or to the nuclear programme. Although promises to continue economic
reforms and improve Iran's human rights image were
offered by the more 'reformist' candidates, these are issues that the
'hardline' candidates neither negated nor felt necessary to address in
detail. Hence, the race was more about values than about issues; more about
Iran's image at home and abroad, than about programmes for change or
continuity.
Second, the election pointed up the fact that the population's outlook as a
whole differs from that offered by much foreign analysis that assesses the
regime to be unrepresentational, ineffective and harsh. Instead, it revealed
that the population's support for the nationalist/Islamist agenda being
conducted by the existing leadership, and for modernisation and
reform to take place within the extant guidelines set by the regime, rather
than outside it. In this sense, the election of Ahmadinejad is a popular
vote for the status quo. His history as a member of an elite corps of the
Pasdaran, the Islamic national militia which still has close ties to the
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and his involvement with the student union
which spawned the group that took over the US embassy back in 1979, marks
him as being in sync with the current conservative leadership, and unlikely
to engage in the backbiting and standoffs that marked Khatami's tenure. His
statements supporting Iran's nuclear programme imply he will initiate little
change in Iran's current approach to the issue that most concerns the West,
and his off-hand manner toward the US concerning the re-establishment of
ties, suggest his support for existing policy. On the other hand, his stated
view as mayor that the government has more important issues to address than
what women wear (though he did require men to wear beards and long sleeves),
and his emphasis on honest governance and
improving employment, would indicate he plans to conduct changes from
within, and with little fanfare. This would play well with the new set of
young, radical parliamentarians colloquially known as the New Wall
Streeters, who wish to conduct changes, from within the Islamic system, to
the regulatory and financial sectors in the hopes of improving investment
opportunities - and hence, Iran's position economically. Though Ahmadinejad
has so far not revealed his choices for cabinet, he is known to be in close
touch with Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, the speaker of the Parliament, a moderate
conservative known to negotiate well between hardliners and reformists.
Although Hashemi Rafsanjani had been tipped by the outside world as a
moderate pragmatist, and a politician wily and experienced enough to move
Iran toward closer Western relationships while perpetrating greater freedoms
at home, his record in office of personal wealth accumulation and probable
support for terrorism abroad belies such expectations. Ironically, had he
won, US policy toward Iran would likely have changed little, with the
argument that the leadership is imposing Islamic government on the populace
continuing the standoff that has marked relations since 1979. Now,
with a religious populist at the helm that is clearly supported by a wide
majority of Iranians, US policy cannot be as easily formulated as reaching
out to the Iranian people and against their government. Although Ahmadinejad
has side-stepped questions concerning human rights, and the street violence
of the Basij, the young Islamic morality police tied to the
religious leadership, he is already showing political acumen in his mixing
of conciliatory remarks (such as confirming Iran's interest in continuing
nuclear negotiations with Germany, the UK and France) with straight-line
religious logic ('We will make Iran a strong, modern, Islamic state'). By
combining, like Khatami, the advantages of being both the outsider as well
as the insider, he is likely to continue many of his predecessor's
programmes that in fact did further the reformist agenda of bettering the
quality of life for common Iranians, even if those successes garnered less
foreign attention than Khatami's politicking over constitutional rights. It
remains to be seen whether a personally moderate man such as Ahmadinejad
can in fact become so politically, learn from Khatami's mistakes, and work
the system from the inside to ameliorate Iran's balance sheet both at home
and abroad. As with any president, to remain in power, he must deliver."
Roxane Farmanfarmaian is at the Centre of International Studies, Cambridge
University
Snuffysmith
Jul 11 2005, 11:21 AM
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/ft01.htmlBooks add to rightwing campaign to demonise Iran
Financial Times
Books add to rightwing campaign to demonise Iran
Two new books in the US - Countdown to Terror and Countdown to Crisis - accuse an incompetent Central Intelligence Agency of failing to recognise the potentially catastrophic threat posed by Iran through what it alleges are close ties between Iran and the fugitive Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
Serialised in the conservative media and popularised on talk-shows, the books have arrived in the midst of a rightwing campaign to demonise Iran - and expose the CIA - at the same time as the Bush administration is exploring ways of funding and backing Iranian opposition groups.
In Countdown to Terror, Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania republican congressman and vice-chairman of the House armed services committee, charges that Iran will carry out the next terror strike on the US, has a bomb that can kill more than 100,000 people, and is giving refuge to Mr bin Laden.
Mr Weldon's information comes from "Ali", said to be a former senior official during the Shah of Iran's rule, whom he first met in Paris in April, last year.
Mr Weldon says he was driven to write his book after the CIA dismissed Ali as a fraud even though, Mr Weldon claims, many of his predictions came true.
Mr Weldon's secondary target is George Tenet, the former CIA boss, and what he calls the old intelligence community elite. Mr Weldon accuses this elite of waging a propaganda war against George W. Bush in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election.
Mr Weldon strongly defends his old friend Porter Goss, who replaced Mr Tenet last year, and his efforts to purge the agency. He concludes that the US would be justified in launching a pre-emptive war against Iran. But since this is not feasible, Mr Weldon argues that the US should give financial support to Iranian groups preparing for regime change.
The ferocity of Mr Weldon's accusations have driven Bill Murray, the former CIA station chief in Paris, to go public with his side of the story - that Ali was a fraudster well known to the agency. The CIA has responded by declassifying a letter to Mr Weldon, in which it says Ali was a fabricator who embellished press reports. "He has provided no information to date worthy of follow-up," it said, adding that it spent hundreds of man hours evaluating his claims.
Mr Murray told the Financial Times that he had informed Mr Weldon that Ali was a known fabricator who wanted money. He said Ali was "totally dependent" on Manouchehr Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms dealer discredited by the CIA for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s.
James Woolsey, a friend of Mr Weldon and former CIA director, praises the book as "a case study of an intelligence failure in the process of happening, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the United States." Mr Goss has not commented on it in public.
The CIA has not commented either on Countdown To Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown With Iran, by Kenneth Timmerman, a journalist and author with close ties to exiled Iranian opposition groups. A CIA spokesman said the agency was too busy to read it.
Mr Timmerman, quoting alleged high-level defectors from Iranian intelligence organisations, says Iran plotted the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US together with al-Qaeda, and is also protecting Mr bin Laden.
"Because of the arrogance and wilful blindness of our nation's top intelligence officers, America's leaders were misled about the threat from Iran until it was too late."
Snuffysmith
Jul 22 2005, 06:42 AM
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050801&s=klareThe Iran War Buildup
Michael Klare
There is no evidence that President Bush has already made the decision to attack Iran if Tehran proceeds with uranium-enrichment activities viewed in Washington as precursors to the manufacture of nuclear munitions. Top Administration officials are known to have argued in favor of military action if Tehran goes ahead with these plans--a step considered more likely with the recent election of arch-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran's president--but Bush, so far as is known, has not yet made up his mind in the matter. One thing does appear certain, however: Bush has given the Defense Department approval to develop scenarios for such an attack and to undertake various preliminary actions. As was the case in 2002 regarding Iraq, the building blocks for an attack in Iran are beginning to be put into place.
We may never know exactly when President Bush made up his mind to invade Iraq--some analysts say the die was cast as early as November 2001; others claim it was not until October 2002--but whatever the case, it is beyond dispute that planning for the invasion was well advanced in July 2002, when British intelligence officials visited Washington and issued what has come to be known as the Downing Street memo, informing Prime Minister Tony Blair that war was nearly inevitable.
What these officials undoubtedly discovered--as was being reported in certain newspapers at the time--was that senior officers of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) in Tampa, Florida, had already been developing detailed scenarios for an invasion of Iraq and that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been deeply involved in these preparations. On July 5, 2002, for example, the New York Times revealed that "an American military planning document calls for air, land, and sea-based forces to attack Iraq from three directions--the north, south, and west." Further details of this document and other blueprints for war appeared in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. At the same time, moreover, the Pentagon reportedly stepped up its aerial and electronic surveillance of military forces in Iraq.
This record is worth revisiting because of the many parallels to the current situation. Just as Bush gave ambiguous signals about his intentions regarding Iraq in 2002--denying that a decision had been made to invade but never ruling it out--so, today, he is giving similar signals with respect to Iran. "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous," Bush declared in Belgium on February 22. He then added: "Having said that, all options are on the table." And, just as Bush's 2002 denials of an intent to invade Iraq were accompanied by intense preparations for just such an outcome, so, today, one can detect similar preparations for an attack on Iran.
Just what form such an attack might take has probably not yet been decided. Just as he considered several plans for an invasion of Iraq before settling on the plan described in the Times, Rumsfeld is no doubt considering a variety of options for action against Iran. These could range from a burst of air and missile attacks to a proxy war involving Iranian opposition militias or a full-scale US invasion. All have obvious advantages and disadvantages. An air and missile attack would undoubtedly destroy some key nuclear centers but could leave some hidden facilities intact; it would also leave the hated clerical regime in place. The use of proxy forces could also fail in this regard. An invasion might solve these problems but would place almost intolerable demands on the deeply over-stretched US Army.
It is these considerations, no doubt, that are preoccupying US military planners today. But while a final decision on these options may be put off for a time, the Defense Department cannot wait to make preparations for an assault if it expects to move swiftly once the President gives the go-ahead. Hence, it is taking steps now to prepare for the implementation of any conceivable plan.
The first step in such a process is to verify the location of possible targets in Iran and to assess the effectiveness of Iranian defenses. The identification of likely targets apparently began late last year, when the Central Intelligence Agency and US Special Operations Forces (SOF) began flying unmanned "Predator" spy planes over Iran and sending small reconnaissance teams directly into Iranian territory. These actions, first revealed by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker in January, are supposedly intended to pinpoint the location of hidden Iranian weapons facilities for possible attack by US air and ground forces. "The goal," Hersh explained, "is to identify and isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by precision [air] strikes and short-term commando raids."
It is also probable, says military analyst William Arkin, that CENTCOM is probing Iran's air and shore defenses by sending electronic surveillance planes and submarines into--or just to the edge of--Iranian coastal areas. "I would be greatly surprised if they're not doing this," he said in an interview. "The intent would be to 'light up' Iranian radars and command/control facilities, so as to pinpoint their location and gauge their effectiveness." It was precisely this sort of aggressive probing that led to the collision between a US EP-3E electronic spy plane and a Chinese fighter over the South China Sea in April 2001.
As this information becomes available, it is no doubt being fed into the various "strategic concepts" and "strike packages" being developed by US strategists for possible action against Iran. That such efforts are indeed under way is confirmed by reports in the international press that Pentagon officials have met with their Israeli counterparts to discuss the possible participation of Israeli aircraft in some of these scenarios. Although no public acknowledgment of such talks has been made, Vice President Dick Cheney declared in January that "the Israelis might well decide to act first" if Iran proceeded with the development of nuclear weapons--obviously hinting that Washington would look with favor upon such a move.
There are also indications that the CIA and SOF officials have met with Iranian opposition forces--in particular, the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK)--to discuss their possible involvement in commando raids inside Iran or a full-scale proxy war. In one such report, Newsweek disclosed in February that the Bush Administration "is seeking to cull useful MEK members as operatives for use against Tehran." (Although the MEK is listed on the State Department's roster of terrorist groups, its forces are "gently treated" by the American troops guarding their compound in eastern Iraq, Newsweek revealed.)
Given the immense stress now being placed on US ground forces in Iraq, it is likely that the Pentagon's favored plan for military action in Iran involves some combination of airstrikes and the use of proxy forces like the MEK. But even a small-scale assault of this sort is likely to provoke retaliatory action by Iran--possibly entailing missile strikes on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf or covert aid to the insurgency in Iraq. This being the case, CENTCOM would also have to develop plans for a wide range of escalatory moves.
Repeating what was said at the outset, there is no evidence that President Bush has already made the decision to attack Iran. But there are many indications that planning for such a move is well under way--and if the record of Iraq (and other wars) teaches us anything, it is that such planning, once commenced, is very hard to turn around. Hence, we should not wait until after relations with Iran have reached the crisis point to advise against US military action. We should begin acting now, before the march to war becomes irreversible.
Snuffysmith
Jul 25 2005, 09:00 AM
The issue of Iran's gains in Iraq is gaining in salience. Professor Juan Cole's comments on this theme are amplified in the following article by Ambassador Peter Galbraith from the latest NY Review of Books. The underlying premise of both articles is that Iran's growing influence is not just an irony but also strategically negative. Presumably a more balanced relationship between the US and Iran would counteract this, but this still remains a very long shot.
Volume 52, Number 13 · August 11, 2005
Feature
Iraq: Bush's Islamic Republic
By Peter W. Galbraith
On June 4, Jalal Talabani, president of Iraq, attended the inauguration of the Kurdistan National Assembly in Erbil, northern Iraq. Talabani, a Kurd, is not only the first-ever democratically elected head of state in Iraq, but in a country that traces its history back to the Garden of Eden, he is, as one friend observed, "the first freely chosen leader of this land since Adam was here alone." While Kurds are enormously proud of his accomplishment, the flag of Iraq—the country Talabani heads—was noticeably absent from the inauguration ceremony, nor can it be found anyplace in Erbil, a city of one million that is the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan Region.
Ann Bodine, the head of the American embassy office in Kirkuk, spoke at the ceremony, congratulating the newly minted parliamentarians, and affirming the US commitment to an Iraq that is, she said, "democratic, federal, pluralistic, and united." The phrase evidently did not apply in Erbil. In their oath, the parliamentarians were asked to swear loyalty to the unity of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Many pointedly dropped the "of Iraq."
The shortest speech was given by the head of the Iranian intelligence service in Erbil, a man known to the Kurds as Agha Panayi. Staring directly at Ms. Bodine, he said simply, "This is a great day. Throughout Iraq, the people we supported are in power." He did not add "Thank you, George Bush." The unstated was understood.
1.
When President Bush spoke to the nation on June 28, he did not mention Iran's rising influence with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad. He did not point out that the two leading parties in the Shiite coalition are pursuing an Islamic state in which the rights of women and religious minorities will be sharply curtailed, and that this kind of regime is already being put into place in parts of Iraq controlled by these parties. Nor did he say anything about the almost unanimous desire of Kurdistan's people for their own independent state.
Instead, President Bush depicted the struggle in Iraq as a battle between the freedom-loving Iraqi people and terrorists. Without the sacrifices of the American servicemen and -women, and the largesse of the US taxpayer, the terrorists could win. As Bush put it, "The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11—if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi."
Bush's effort to revive the link between Iraq and September 11 produced a flood of criticism, leading some of his critics to dismiss him as a habitual liar on Iraq matters. Alas, the comment may be more indicative of how disconnected administration strategy is from the realities of Iraq. Unfortunately, many of the administration's sharpest critics seem to share its assumption that there is a people sharing a common Iraqi identity, an inaccurate assumption that provides fodder for misleading Vietnam analogies.
There is, in fact, no Iraqi insurgency. There is a Sunni Arab insurgency. And it cannot win. Neither the al-Qaeda terrorists nor the former Baathists can win. Even if the US withdrew tomorrow, neither insurgents nor terrorists would be knocking down the gates to Iraq's Presidential Palace in Baghdad.
Basically, the military equation in Iraq comes down to demographics. Sunni Arabs are no more than 20 percent of Iraq's population. Even in Baghdad—once the seat of Sunni Arab power—Sunni Arabs are a minority. To succeed, the insurgency would have to win support from Iraq's other major communities—the Kurds at 20 percent and the Shiites at between 55 and 60 percent. This cannot happen.
While the Kurds are mostly Sunni Muslims, they have a history of repression at the hands of Sunni Arabs. A few dozen Kurds have been involved in terrorist acts, but al-Qaeda and its allies have no support in the Kurdistan population, which is one reason Kurdistan has largely been spared the violence that has wracked Arab Iraq.
The Shiites are completely immune to any appeal by insurgents. Sunni fundamentalists consider Shiites as apostates, and possibly a more dangerous enemy than even the Americans. (The Americans, they know, will leave. The apostates want to rule.) For the last two years, Sunni Arab insurgents have targeted Shiite mosques, clerics, religious celebrations, and pilgrims—with a toll in the thousands. The insurgent goal is to provoke sectarian war, and they seem to be succeeding. In spite of calls for restraint by Shiite leaders, there are growing numbers of retaliatory killings of Sunni Arabs by Shiites.
But while the insurgents cannot win, neither can they be defeated.
For most of his thirty-five-year rule Saddam Hussein faced guerrilla warfare from Kurds or Shiites—and sometimes both. Even the most brutal of tactics could not pacify communities that did not accept Sunni Arab rule. Today Sunni Arabs reject rule by Iraq's Shiite majority. It is unrealistic to think the American military—operating with a fraction of the intelligence of the Saddam Hussein regime and with much less brutality (Abu Ghraib notwithstanding)—can quell a Sunni Arab resistance that is no longer solely anti-American but also anti-Shiite.
2.
In his speech, President Bush outlined a two-pronged strategy for dealing with the insurgency: the training of Iraqi military and security forces to take over the fight ("As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down") and the continuation of Iraq's democratic transition with the writing of a constitution as its centerpiece.
Building national security institutions is a challenge in a country that does not have a shared national identity. Saddam's army consisted of Sunni Arab officers (with a few exceptions) and Shiite and (until 1991) Kurdish conscripts. Today, the Iraqi military and security services are a mixture of Kurdish peshmerga, rehabilitated Sunni Arab officers from Saddam's army, and Shiite and Sunni Arab recruits. What is little known is that virtually all of the effective fighting units in the new Iraqi military are in fact former Kurdish peshmerga. These units owe no loyalty to Iraq, and, if recalled by the Kurdistan government, they will all go north to fight for Kurdistan.
The Shiites, naturally, want a Shiite military that will be loyal to the new Shiite-dominated government. They have encouraged the Shiite militias— and notably the Badr Brigade—to take over security in the Shiite south, and to integrate themselves into the national military. Neither the Shiites nor the Kurds want the Sunni Arabs to have a significant part in the new Iraqi military or security services. They suspect— with good reason in many cases—that the Sunni Arabs in the military are in fact cooperating with the insurgency. No Kurdish minister in the national government uses Iraqi forces for his personal security, nor will any of them inform the Iraqi authorities of their movements. Instead, they entrust their lives to specially trained peshmerga brought to Baghdad. Many Shiite ministers use the Shiite militias in the same way.
A few months after the Iraqi elections, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld flew to Baghdad to warn the new Shiite-led government not to purge Sunni Arabs from the police and military. He got a promise, but the government has no intention of keeping on people associated with Saddam's regime. Too many of them have the blood of Shiites or Kurds on their hands, and neither group is in a forgiving mood. But the Americans, with little comprehension of Iraq's recent history, seem not to understand. Recently, the Kurds identified the retired Iraqi officer who personally carried out the 1983 execution of more than five thousand members of the tribe of the Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani. The killer's son holds a senior security position in Iraq, appointed by the American occupation authorities.
3.
A Shiite list won a narrow majority in Iraq's January elections. Sponsored by Iraq's leading Shiite, Ali al-Sistani (himself an Iranian who was therefore ineligible to vote for his own list), the list includes Shiite religious parties, some secular Shiites including the one-time Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi, and even a few Sunni Arabs. Real power in Shiite Iraq rests, however, with two religious parties: Abdel Aziz al-Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Dawa ("Call," in English) of Iraq's Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari. Of the two, SCIRI is the more pro-Iranian. Both parties have military wings, and SCIRI's Badr Corps has grown significantly from the five thousand fighters that harassed Saddam's regime from Iran in the decades before the war; it now works closely with Iraq's Shiite interior minister, until recently the corps' commander, to provide security and fight Sunni Arab insurgents.
SCIRI and Dawa want Iraq to be an Islamic state. They propose to make Islam the principal source of law, which most immediately would affect the status of women. For Muslim women, religious law—rather than Iraq's relatively progressive civil code—would govern personal status, including matters relating to marriage, divorce, property, and child custody. A Dawa draft for the Iraqi constitution would limit religious freedom for non-Muslims, and apparently deny such freedom altogether to peoples not "of the book," such as the Yezidis (a significant minority in Kurdistan), Zoroastrians, and Bahais.
This program is not just theoretical. Since Saddam's fall, Shiite religious parties have had de facto control over Iraq's southern cities. There Iranian-style religious police enforce a conservative Islamic code, including dress codes and bans on alcohol and other non-Islamic behavior. In most cases, the religious authorities govern—and legislate—without authority from Baghdad, and certainly without any reference to the freedoms incorporated in Iraq's American-written interim constitution—the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL).
Dawa and SCIRI are not just promoting an Iranian-style political system —they are also directly promoting Iran- ian interests. Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the SCIRI leader, has advocated paying Iran billions in reparations for damage done in the Iran–Iraq war, even as the Bush administration has been working to win forgiveness for Iraq's Saddam-era debt. Iraq's Shiite oil minister is promoting construction of an export pipeline for petroleum from Basra to the Iranian port city of Abadan, creating an economic and strategic link between the two historic adversaries that would have been unthinkable until now. Iraq's Shiite government has acknowledged Iraq's responsibility for starting the Iran–Iraq war, and apologized. It is an acknowledgment probably justified by the historical record, but one that has infuriated Iraq's Sunni Arabs.
Through its spies, infiltrators, and sympathizers, Iran has a presence in Iraq's security forces and military. It is virtually certain that Iran has access to any intelligence that the Iraqis have. Not only does Iran have an opportunity to insert its people into the Iraqi apparatus, it also has many Iraqi allies willing to do its bidding. When I asked an Iraqi with major intelligence responsibilities about foreign infiltration into Iraq, he dismissed the influx from Syria (the focus of the Bush administration's attention) and said the real problem was from Iran. When I asked how the infiltration took place, he said simply, "But Iran is already in Baghdad."
On July 7, the Iranian and Iraqi defense ministers signed an agreement on military cooperation that would have Iranians train the Iraqi military. The Iraqi defense minister made a point of saying American views would not count: "Nobody can dictate to Iraq its relations with other countries." However, even if the training is deferred or derailed, it is only the visible—and very much smaller—component of a stealth Iranian encroachment into Iraq's national institutions and security services.
So far, the Bush administration seems surprisingly untroubled by the influence in Baghdad of a country to which it has shown unrelenting hostility. But should the President want to understand why the Shiites have shown so little receptivity to his version of democracy, he need only go back to his father's presidency. On February 15, 1991, the first President Bush called on the Iraqi people and military to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The Shiites made the mistake of believing he meant it. Three days after the first Gulf War ended, on March 2, 1991, a Shiite rebellion began in Basra and quickly spread to the southern reaches of Baghdad. Then Saddam counterattacked with great ferocity. Three hundred thousand Shiites ultimately died. Not only did the elder President Bush not help, his administration refused even to hear the pleas of the more and more desperate Shiites. While the elder Bush's behavior may have many explanations, no Shiite I know of sees it as anything other than a calculated plan to have them slaughtered. By contrast, Iran, which backed SCIRI and Dawa and equipped the Badr Brigade, has long been seen as a reliable friend.
4.
Days after the Kurdistan National Assembly convened in June, it elected Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Masood Barzani as the first president of Kurdistan. Before so doing, it passed a law making him commander in chief of the Kurdistan military but then specifically prohibiting him from deploying Kurdistan forces elsewhere in Iraq, unless expressly approved by the assembly. (Kurdistan retains some 50,000 peshmerga under the direct control of the Kurdistan government.) The assembly also banned the entry of non-Kurdish Iraqi military forces into Kurdistan without its approval. Kurdish leaders are mindful that their people are even more militant in their demands. Two million Kurds voted in a January referendum on independence held simultaneously with the national ballot, with 98 percent choosing the independence option.
Kurdistan's leaders would like Iraq to be a loose confederation in which Kurdistan makes its own laws, retains its own military, the Iraqi military stays out, and Kurdistan manages its own oil and water resources. Although Iraq's interim constitution, the TAL, talks of "federalism," it has been implemented so as to create no more than a confederal relationship between Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq. The Kurdish leaders would accept its continuation provided the text was clarified to assure Kurdistan's ownership of petroleum in the region and if the status of the disputed region of Kirkuk were resolved.
While the Shiite religious parties accepted the TAL when it was promulgated in 2004, the Kurds now believe they don't mean it. When he swore in his cabinet on May 3, 2005, Shiite Prime Minister Jaafari eliminated the reference to a "federal Iraq" from the statutory oath of office; this so angered Barzani that he forced a second swearing-in ceremony. Some Shiite drafts for Iraq's permanent constitution would sharply restrict Kurdistan's autonomy and demote Kurdish from its current status at the federal level as an official language equal with Arabic. The Kurdish leaders also worry that the Shiites will try to eliminate Kurdistan's current ability to modify the application of national law in Kurdistan; they fear that the Shiites will, at least, stop secular Kurdistan from rejecting the imposition of Islamic law.
5.
In his speech, President Bush alluded to the importance of Iraqis meeting their deadlines. The deadline that looms is August 15 for the National Assembly to adopt a constitution. As of this writing, great effort has been devoted to questions of expanding the drafting committee to include Sunni Arabs. Very little has been done on the substantive work of writing a constitution.
Because the differences among Iraq's three communities are so great, it seems unlikely that they can find common ground on a constitution by August 15, if ever. But the deadline could be met if the assembly agrees simply to continue the TAL, with some modifications of the provisions on oil and Kirkuk. The Shiites have a desire similar to the Kurds' for oil to be owned and managed by the regions. The Shiite south sits on top of nearly 80 percent of Iraq's known oil and, like the Kurds, the Shiites feel the old system of central management enriched Baghdad and the Sunni Arabs without providing any benefits to the regions owning the oil. Shiite leaders from the three oil-rich southern governorates have already proposed to create a southern region that, like Kurdistan, would have its own oil.
Control over Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed governorate, will be much more difficult to solve. The Kurds insist it is the heart of Kurdistan, and believe a great injustice was done when Saddam expelled Kurds from the area and resettled Arabs in their place. But Kirkuk also has indigenous Arabs, Turcomans, Assyrians, and Chaldeans. The Kurds and Shiites could make a deal to have a referendum to determine Kirkuk's future, which, since the Kurds are now again likely to have a majority, could be significantly at the expense of the Sunni Arabs. But not entirely, since Kirkuk's Arabs and Turcomans are both Sunni and Shiite.
In the coming constitutional battle, Kurdistan leaders—and many secular Arab Iraqis—will be drawing the line on three principles: secularism, the rights of women, and federalism. They fear that President Bush will be more interested in meeting the August 15 deadline for a constitution than in its content, and that they will be under pressure to make concessions to the Shiite majority. It may be the ultimate irony that the United States, which, among other reasons, invaded Iraq to help bring liberal democracy to the Middle East, will play a decisive role in establishing its second Shiite Islamic state.
In fact an agreement on the constitution in the National Assembly may not end Iraq's sectarian divisions but set the stage for new battles. Voters must approve the constitution in a referendum scheduled for October 15, and under the TAL two thirds of the voters in any three governorates may veto it. There are three Kurdish governorates, but also three Sunni Arab governorates. Even if Kurdistan's leaders reluctantly accept a Shiite-written constitution, the independence-minded Kurdistan electorate may reject it. Moreover, the Sunni Arabs could easily use the referendum to torpedo any Shiite–Kurdish agreement.
The ratification clause of the TAL creates a timed fuse that could blow Iraq apart, and as is true for so much else that has gone wrong, it is American arrogance and ignorance that are to blame. When Iraq's Governing Council was considering the TAL in February 2004, the Kurds came up with a simple proposal to protect their existing autonomy: the permanent constitution would come into effect if ratified by a majority of Iraqis, but would only be operative in Kurdistan if ratified by a majority of Kurdistan's voters. This simple formula, which involved no veto on the ratification on the constitution but only a geographic limitation on where it would apply, was largely acceptable to the Arab Iraqis. But it was not acceptable to the American administrator, L. Paul Bremer, who did not want to concede that Iraq's ethnic communities should be treated differently. He came up with the three-governorate formula, preparing the way for a future train wreck.
6.
There are two central problems in today's Iraq: the first is the insurgency and the second is an Iranian takeover. The insurgency, for all its violence, is a finite problem. The insurgents may not be defeated but they cannot win. This, of course, raises a question about what a prolonged US military presence in Iraq can accomplish, since there is no military solution to the problem of Sunni Arab rejection of Shiite rule, which is now integral to the insurgency.
Iraq's Shiites endured decades of brutal repression, to which the United States was mostly indifferent. Iran, by contrast, was a good friend and committed supporter of the Shiites. By bringing freedom to Iraq, the Bush administration has allowed Iraq's Shiites to vote for pro-Iranian religious parties that seek to create—and are creating —an Islamic state. This is not ideal but it is the result of a democratic process.
The Bush administration should, however, draw the line at allowing a Shiite theocracy to establish control over all of Iraq. This requires a drastic change of strategy. Building powerful national institutions in Iraq serves the interest of one group—today it is the Shiites—at the expense of the others, and inevitably produces conflict and instability. Instead, the administration should concentrate on political arrangements that match the reality in Iraq. This means a loose confederation in which each of Iraq's communities governs itself, and is capable of defending itself. It may not be possible to accomplish this in a constitution, since the very process of writing a constitution forces these communities to confront issues—religion, women's rights, ownership of oil, regional militaries— that are hard to resolve ideologically.
Many of these issues, however, could conceivably be worked out practically. For example, the Iraqi Ministry of Oil and the Kurdistan government are currently cooperating on fulfilling oil contracts made by the Kurdistan government, without having to face the constitutional issue of who owns the resources. Without having to make a constitutional decision on religion, the Shiite south can apply Islamic law as it now does and Kurdistan can remain secular.
War always has unintended consequences. Currently we are pursuing a strategy that will not end the insurgency but that plays directly into the hands of Iran. No wonder Agha Panayi, the Iranian intelligence official, was smiling.
—July 14, 2005